Star Trek: Discovery trailer

I have to say that the trailer doesn't really do anything for me. Although I would say that the pilot episode of any Star Trek series are never the best. The most memorable episodes are random strewn about the series, or are season finales.

That being said, this is the first new Star Trek series since the rise of Netflix and HBO originals. TV has changed so much, and with this being on yet another service, I am curious how this will do.

I thought Jason Isaacs was the captain? Are we just not going to see him in the pilot at all?

I think the pilot was filmed before Issacs joined the cast

Okay, I think I figured it out.

The trailer here takes place aboard the USS Shenzhou. The ship we see in this trailer presumably isn't even the USS Discovery, and so none of the other established cast is seen.

As for the actual quality of the trailer/show, I just dunno yet. Seems a little too slick for a pre-TOS show, almost seems like the movies

yeah- doesn't resonate with me. it looks expensive, which means if they don't get the early eyeballs they won't have enough runway to tell a proper star trek story (slow burn character development).

hope it's good though!

A bit more Abrams than i wanted but it seems interesting at least, i miss when star trek was about exploration/discovery/first contacts and not so much about everybody gonna die lets fight the bad guys.

Willing to give it a shot but I'm not optimistic. Another freaking prequel, give me something post-TNG/Voyager.

Looks a little Mass-Eftrek. Not sure I'm into it. This doesn't even look like it's part of the same universe. Even the JJ Abrams version managed to have "It Will Be The Same - But Different!" vibe to it.

I don't know. Doesn't really have anything that gets me too excited. Then again, I was incredibly pessimistic about the MST3K return, and I thought that turned out great in the end, so who knows. I don't really want an action series out of Star Trek, and the trailer makes it feel like there's a lot of space battles and Klingon punching, but who knows if that's the whole series, or just the pilot, or what.

If it's set so close to TOS, why make the uniforms look so different? I thought the 2009 movie did a good job of keeping the old look but making them feel more contemporary and less dated. It's just an aesthetic choice I guess, but I'm really used to seeing a lot of red, gold and blue in Star Trek, you know?

Oh shit! They got Sasha from The Walking Dead! And Michelle Yeoh!

As a Star Trek it doesn't excite me (I like Star Trek, but this doesn't look very... you know, TNG-y), but I'm interested to see what they do with it.

I was worried from the start about this project and this trailer doesn't boost my confidence in the series. Visually, it looks awful; the writing looks bad; the characters still don't do anything for me. You really need a strong lead to hold up the show and I don't see that happening with these characters.

The Orville actually looks way more interesting - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5691552/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_1

I loved all the Star Trek shows, and I'm glad it's coming back to that form. It's unfortunate though that I probably won't be watching it considering its a CBS All Access thing and disappointingly/awkwardly only international for Netflix users. I had some reservations when they announced it, and I do have a few more now that I saw the trailer, but I'd be happy to watch it if I could when it comes on.

Admittedly I haven't been paying attention to what they've said about the series to date, but I was kinda hoping they'd actually move forward in the time line.

Oh, well.

My only experience with Star Trek is TNG and the Abrams movies. I love TNG because it celebrates scientists, engineers, and solving problems with your brain. I don't love the Abrams movies because they're effectively the inverse of everything I just described in TNG.

This looks to be fully in the Abrams camp. Non-stop action, incessant lens flare, "let's go punch aliens," et al. Could be fine, but if they're only going to be hawking space combat then there would have been plenty of other avenues and franchises for that.

This looks like scifi. From Star Trek I want science fiction.

Yeah, this looks to reboot-inspired for my taste (and too many lense flares already). Knew it was a prequel, still not terribly thrilled. I'll still give it a fair shake, though. Do we know what canon this is in?

Yeah, after watching the trailer again I think I agree. Was going to bring up The Orville myself but thought against it.

Here's to hoping this is basically America's answer to Red Dwarf, which is basically the gold standard in sci fi comedy as far as I'm concerned

Yikes...that looked a little fan-filmy. Really not feeling it.

I have a feeling I'm not going to like this based off of the way it's shot. There will probably be a myriad of other reasons as well, but MAN I'm not a big fan of Abrams-style Star Trek.

I'll give it a chance, but jeez this doesn't look like it's for me. I guess that's been true since 2009, but it's only hitting me now.

Hmm, thought it was just me being an old grouch but apparently the trailer isn't doing much for other people either. Looks kind of blah, the Klingon redesigns don't look great, even the acting seems pretty wooden (grated that's true for a lot of tv shows at the beginning). But that dialogue at the end about being biologically designed to "sense the coming of death"? Like WHAT? That sounds something from a spoof. Hope that makes more sense in context.

Man, I'm kind of surprised to see people not digging it because I think this looks great. It's definitely a little action heavy, but that's basically every single television pilot cut into a trailer so I'm pretty confident the series itself will be more deliberative.

Not sure why they're limiting themselves by making this another prequel instead of going post-TNG/Voyager where they could come up with cool new ideas without having to worry about stiffly sticking to established canon.

Yeah that's kind of a problem.

It's pretty sad we're following a prequel series (that wasn't received that well) with... another prequel series. 10 years before Kirk and Spock isn't even that interesting of a gap!

I think there is a perceived belief that TOS era is loved more then the TNG era so people want to go back to that. Also TOS era is now in the cultural consciousness because of the reboot movies. Discovery just seems to much like a stereotypical mediocre TV show given the stuff I've seen. Hopefully it's better then it looks so far.

I for one want to see a future Trek series set on the Enterprise-G and have some original new designs of everything.

Discovery trailer was boring but I'll still give it a chance.

The Orville looks god awful.

Eeeeeeehhhhhhhhh.
That said I'll watch all of it.

There is too much Abrahms going on in that trailer to make me feel in any way optimistic as to how this show will turn out.

Ever since TNG (and Gene Roddenberry's death) Star Trek has been in gradual decline. It has been taken in many different directions, except into the one where it's smart and ambitious science fiction about moral quandaries, diplomacy, self-improvement and dealing with both superior and inferior species, where it's theater and not bombast. Where the heroes aren't 20-something pretty faced simpletons, with nothing to lend the role except exercising tips. In fact there a rather prophetic DS9 episode about a crew of kids running a warship.

The episodes with existential threat are memorable, but they made the universe feel fake. That's why Star Trek movies are pretty much all terrible, because of the attempt to take it up a notch. And the trailer already hints at "Trying to save us all". Which is a bad sign.

Star Trek was best when the action was Geordi rolling under the blast door and the crew shot things with stuff that looked like garage remotes and epilators. Not because it's great to have trash props, but because this makes actors believable and human, which in turn makes the universe feel lived in. Sci-fi cannot be ripped from the headlines or green screen superhero malarkey. It also needs to be a little plodding and slow and building to give people time to reflect and appreciate.

There is just no way this isn't going to be another sad travesty, of J.J.Abrams proportions.

I feel like I must've watched a different trailer from everyone else. Too action-heavy? There's not a single shot fired in the whole thing! They spend more time talking about 'the unknown' and exploring than they do about fighting Klingons, though that's clearly going to be a significant part of the show. And they seem to be at least aware that Starfleet generally isn't a shooty-shooty sort of organisation - 'Starfleet doesn't fire first.' - which puts them ahead of the Kelvin Timeline's 'peacekeeping and humanitarian armada' (exploring space? what's that?) already, so far as I'm concerned--even if Burnham herself takes a more aggressive approach, it'll be explicitly in contrast with Starfleet's established ethos, and they can draw on that conflict for the plot.

I'll agree that parts of the script felt clunky, though I think at least some of that can be explained by trailer editing. That line from Georgiou about Burnham being ready for her own command, in particular, sounded like it was chopped together from at least three separate other lines. As for Lieutenant 'I sense death' Saru... Honestly, I actually think the idea of an alien that senses death - so, heightened threat-awareness, basically - is a lot less dubious than the idea of an alien who can sense emotions from a few hundred kilometres away. I imagine his species' backstory includes their being genetically engineered specifically for that purpose by another species that they've since achieved emancipation from.

On the aesthetics: I'm not in love with the Shenzhou's interior - too dingy for me, honestly; starships should have bright colours, wood panelling and carpets! - but I quite like the new uniforms - the rank pips on the insignia are a cool little detail - and the underslung bridge actually really works for me. (Already got some headcanons about that one!) I'm really not keen on the lens flarey-ness of some of the shots in the trailer, but there may be some hope there--I'm in the UK, and the UK version of this trailer didn't have them, so they're clearly a post-effect, and may have been added purely for the sake of making the US-market trailer look more Kelvin-y.

I suppose it helps that I wasn't really expecting them to hew all that close to TOS aesthetics--I think they could've gotten a fair bit closer while still making the show look modern, but they were never going to actually make everything look like cardboard and jellybeans again. I mean, compare the two shows' spacesuits, for/example--no way the TOS version was gonna fly in 2017. Besides, my affection for Star Trek starts with TNG - still my favourite TV show, ever - and goes forward from there - the better TOS-cast movies aside - so I was never going to be hugely fussed about how good a job they did of capturing the look of the TOS era.

Overall, I'm pretty optimistic. I liked most of what I saw in the trailer, and I love the cast they've announced. If I'm honest, I would've preferred something set after Voyager/Nemesis to another prequel, but I made peace with that a long time ago.

As for The Orville, since it's come up--honestly, the trailer did nothing for me. It seems like it's gonna be another Seth MacFarlane comedy, just with a Star Trek veneer, and I got tired of his sense of humour several seasons of Family Guy ago. I'd love to be proven wrong, of course.

Having watched most of the Star Trek out there (OST, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, movies), the fact that this feels different is a good thing. TNG -VOY era Star Trek had serious problems with how episodes ended without emotional payback and how most things would reset in the next episode. Most series also suffered from inconsistent writing due to the way TV shows were made back then. The Enterprise fixed lots of these problems and also introduced better fight and action choreography and greater emphasis on character relationships. So if STD can start from the level that the Enterprise left, things should be fine.

However one thing that worries me is the social progressiveness aspect of the Star Trek. By this I mean that previously they have handled matters relating to this quit heavy-handedly and in very awkward fashion. In today's toxic environment where you are 100% sure to piss someone off, there are going to be some shit storms. I don't know that I can watch this without constantly getting ready to gringe to the moment when they eventually bring something like gender fluidity of a crew member to focus and thus igniting the fire storm on the internet.

Visually looks cool though. Also, international Netflix trailer has better feels:

The Abrams movies were pretty sedate with this (Sulu's homosexuality retcon rendered to cameo status, for example). It's tough to know how much of that was due to limited screen time; we'll have to see. That said, Trek has always had heavy-handed moralizing in it from the very beginning, though those episodes are some of the least popular with fans.

@freedom4556: True. I really didn't take the reboots into consideration. In my mind, unless I don't make conscious effort, I really don't see them as "Star Trek". They are "Star Trek" just because very superficial things (like most Trek movies). That said, I sure would gladly take "Classic" Trek with all the gringe in the alpha quadrant over the shallow shell of the "reboot" trek.

i don't want to start a star trek fight, but holy toledo do i DEEPLY disagree. enterprise i found to be generally weak- specifically when you compare it to the character development of something like TNG or DS9. granted it never had the opportunity (in other words: quantity of seasons) to shine like the others...but MAN hindsight being 20/20 i barely remember any of the escapades of Archer & Co. i hope this show tonally manages to do its own thing, as it could never match the expectations of 90s trek, nor do i want it chasing the tone that enterprise hit.

i would say- like @freedom4556 stated above- star trek has always posed ethical/moral questions (and answers). and the internet has always been full of fans that are ready to poop on anything at a moment's notice. don't let anticipated backlash color your enjoyment- let's see if the show is any good first.

I'm optimistic about it. It will probably have a pretty rough start (I mean, pretty much every series so far has had a crappy first season), but I can live with that. The only thing I'm not into is the Klingon redesign. Hairless Klingon look dumb and weird, just like hairless Romulans did in the 2009 movie.

Star Trek is literally one of the first shows to be inclusive, way back in the 60's they pioneered interracial and gender(not as much) equality on television. You can call it "heavy handed" but it was literally the only thing brave enough to do it, which is one of the many reasons it was so popular for so long and had so many successful series.

Also, you are wrong about TNG era vs Enterprise, i found enterprise relationships to be mediocre and forgettable and the episodic nature of the other shows allowed for the show to touch on many different topics and be way more creative than the story arc focused enterprise (and why enterprise only lasted 4 seasons compared to TNG, Voyager, and Deep space nine which i believe all had 8 or 9 seasons). They tried to "sexy" up star trek and lost a lot of what made the show great, i think it did start to come together right before it got cancelled though. Enterprise was also kinda tone death, i mean c'mon an alien race calling humans "pink" skins? huh?

@mellotronrules: I agree with character development on the Enterprise. There was almost none of it. My point is that went deeper than most (or least tried hardest) with character interactions and replaced most of the techno-magic-babble with it. Enterprise had really good parts but ultimately failed to make something truly outstanding out of them. That said, Enterprise is the only show that had elements that are needed for Star Trek to work in today's streaming environment for large enough audience.

@oursin_360: Enterprise died more because series fatigue - there was pretty much same kind of Trek non-stop from 1987 to 2001. This didn't effect only the audience but core production staff. Fact that it lasted "only" 4 seasons is pointless as some of the best TV series are shorter than that. Also one Andorian calls his friend "pink skin" and every Andorian is anti-terran - sure it is fine for random Bajoran to call Cardassians "spoon heads" but when it is Andorians...

Heavy handed is bad. If you can't tell your message without breaking the immersion, you should write whole thing from the scratch. If you can't reach the audience without coming out as preachy and condescendingly (or just plainly weird like Sisko constantly fondling Jake), you ain't going to change anybody's opinion - and worst of all you are not being entertaining. Tell anything you want as long as it written well.

As someone who is not deep into Star Trek at all, I thought it looked fine. I kept hearing that it's on CBS All Access, but what the hell is that? Do people have to be signed up for a service to watch this show, if so, good luck with that. If it's on regular CBS that doesn't sound good either, since I can't think of a CBS show that I ever thought was good. Seems like she might be half Vulcan, if so, seems like her ears would be bigger. I think a Mass Effect series on a good channel (FX, AMC, HBO, Netflix, etc) would be way more interesting to me. The Mass Effect universe is better than Star Trek and definitely Star Wars IMO.

No he called all humans "pink skins" i watched the first season not to long ago, and the problem is it makes no sense since we aren't all pink skins lol. I have no problem with the andorians being anti human/vulcan bigots in terms of writing, but calling humans pink skins because they weren't blue made no sense. Series fatigue is a lie, it died because it wasn't a good show until maybe the end of the 3rd season maybe you liked it personally but the majority of us thought it was mediocre at best. I don't see how start trek is even trying to "change anybody's opinion" the reason they were inclusive is simply because it made no sense for an advanced federation with global/interstellar peace to be racist/bigots etc. Sure there was some bad writing at times but the overall quality of star trek vastly out weighed any of the bad episodes.

@oursin_360: TNG was not either that good until Riker got his beard (season 3-ish?). Also I am not claiming that Enterprise was the best Trek series, since DS9 is the clear winner there. All I am trying say is that only Enterprise had certain elements (that other shows did not have) that series needs to be accepted now days.

I can agree with that, TNG did take awhile to get good although it's hard for me to remember since i was like 7-8 when i was watching it as a kid. I liked things about Enterprise, i thought the idea of a prequel was good and the whole time travel thing was interesting but those ideas didn't really come to fruition until the abrams movies which is what i think they wanted to do with enterprise in the first place. I just think studios forget that star trek lasted a pretty damn long time with at least 3 series that lasted almost a decade apiece, in terms of show longevity that's pretty damn incredible. And now they won't even bring this one out on television, which is a shame IMO.

Lens flare? COme on folks even JJ Abrams gave up on the lense flare in the past two movies. The show looks expensively shot and made...lots of visual effects, but to be honest I was looking forward to a more simplistic 1960s -like wardrobe and ship style that melded teh old universe into the new.

Here is my take on Star Trek...

Gene Roddenberry was a drunk - lets just be honest about that. His view of the future was often hopeful and optimistic about humanity. However, Roddenberry was a technological luddite about certain subjects. If Gene didn't like it, he always put it in negative light. Ideas like genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, bionics/implants, or robots were always portrayed as bad until Data, and then except for Data. If you were genetically engineered, an AI, or a robot; Gene made you the bad guy in the episode or made you the pathetic being that Kirk or Picard would look down upon.

Because of the above Star Trek canonically is 40 years behind all other science fiction. The 1960s show described may ideas that woudl become real in our modern age. But, TNG...hopelessly backward our own laptops in 1990 were smaller than the desktop computers the Enterprise had; bluetooth devices now are just as small as the communicator badges from a 1988 show. Neural implants for communications? NOPE, CAN'T HAVE THAT! Computer slates that aren't an inch thick? NOPE The Next Generation and the other shows never looking forward, ist couldn't Robbenebury didn't like that sort of technology. An implanted communicator?! Never! In fact ,if they were to show implants it would have to be in a BAD guy...like a Borg...it an abomination according to Gene's philosophy.

And that my friends is why TOS was relevant to our world, but TNG is just entertainment. TOS look forward, whereas TNG just wanted and simple minded audience not to get lost or scared or challenged - it looked backward into the familiar.

If you are getting region blocked, this one works for Canada

I don't understand them wanting to make another prequel, why not just move the universe forward, it really takes me out of it when these prequels have more advanced tech than what comes after them and there is no need for it.

@monkeyking1969: Hey, now, there's a bit of revisionism going on here. Gene had minimal influence on Next Gen after season 1, seeing as how he died in '91. That's why they wrote Wes off and later developed the Borg. They also slowly reintroduced money and capitalism back to the universe with the Ferengi.

Gene is evil...nuff said.

It looks okay. It's not at all what I wanted from a new Star Trek series, but nothing about that trailer makes it look like a bad TV show in its own right. I guess we'll just have to take this for what it's worth and keep waiting for Star Trek: The Next-er Generation.

@monkeyking1969: I'd argue the real strength of Star Trek was never the moral pandering, the progressive gestures, or the token inclusion of certain groups in the show.

Instead it was really stand-out, inventive plots (more of these in TNG than anywhere else), a fascinating technical setting, along with a strong cast (perhaps the only area where TOS outshines other shows - nothing beats the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic).

The other stuff was just along for the ride, as much as folks love to wax poetic Gene's "vision," and this is why the middle of Next Gen is just a more powerful - better made, better received - cultural cornerstone

But then again, I grew up with TNG. You might have grown up with TOS, seeing things differently... arguably neither are particularly resonant or important nowadays.

Well no thanks, JJ Abrams bastard #37.

• Baby faced Teenage angst,
• Stupid Dialog: "Cut off his head"! Said no one since the inventions of guns.
• Super demonic evil doers with no nuance.
• More camera angels than dialog.
• Michelle Yeoh and Sasha from Walking Dead have the action chops of a tree stump. I want commander Cisco to yell at me, not try and figure out if this thing on screen is a robot or too much botox.

Just like the prequels this is Star Wars Trek. Made by people who love focus testing and despise plot and characters. How many episodes in before we see the 1st officer fucking? Episode 2? 10 minutes into episode 1? How many episodes till the edgy 1st officer says f*ck?

I feel sorry for any kid growing up on this rubbish. I genuinely think that growing up with DS9, Voyager, and TNG re-runs made me a better person, and taught me more than school ever did.

This trailer doesn't really do anything for me but I am a dilettante of Star Trek fandom so take that with a grain of salt. The show being centred around another half Vulcan seems kind of lame though. Not sure if what I wanted in Star Trek was a bunch of daddy issues and angst about heritage.

This and The Orville are in a wait and see pattern for me.

I wasn't feeling the trailer either, I was hoping the tone of the new Star Trek would be more in line with TNG, but this seems to be more the JJ Abrams style. Seems to be very dramatic and tense rather than toned-down and laid back like TNG was.

I've been binge-watching Trek shows for the first time. One thing I like is you never know what you're gonna get, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a try at least.